On Monday, April 20, 2015, the NYS PTA issued a statement saying, “As we enter into another week of NYS Assessments, NYS PTA acknowledges the significant increase in refusals that occurred this past week with the ELA Assessments as many parents chose to have their students not participate.”The fact that the NYS PTA will only ‘acknowledge’ that test refusals have increased, without taking any stand, is extremely concerning.Does that mean they were contemplating if parent concerns are fake before they acknowledged that this is actually happening?Does that mean that they still do NOT acknowledge the education crisis that our state and country face?For the past week, every media outlet in NYS has been covering the mass test refusal that has taken place.This revolution has been broadcast by media across the nation.Every state in the country has a significant opt-out movement.The state of NY has just experienced the largest education revolution in the history of the nation, and the best the NYS PTA can do is ‘acknowledge’ that it happened?Well, thank you, NYS PTA, for acknowledging that it happened, but we are well aware that it happened, and we did not need you to produce a public statement to acknowledge that it happened.That just adds fuel to the testing fire.I will continue to support my local PTA, and I will continue to boycott membership to the NYS PTA.They do not deserve my membership dollars at this point.

At tonight’s school board meeting Superintendent Dawn Mirand reported that 37% of students refused the 2015 ELA test in grades 3-8.Last year, according to the Buffalo News, 6.51% of students refused the state ELA test.That is a 569% increase.WE HAVE YOUR BACK KEN-TON SCHOOL BOARD!!!The state Math tests next week will likely have much higher refusal rates as parents realize how important it is to refuse these tests. Please continue to educate other Ken-Ton parents about the importance of refusing the Math test next week by continuing to distribute flyers to parents and bracelets to students.

Author

Eric Mihelbergel is one of the original founders of NYS Allies for Public, Western New Yorker's for Public Education, and NYS Refuse the Test. Eric has personally helped thousands of parents across the state of NY to fight against high-stakes testing. He is an avid public speaker on education issues including how to refuse NYS tests, and he has authored many articles. In the spring of 2015, Eric successfully helped parents of over 220,000 students coordinate the boycotting of NYS Common Core tests.